Spent a whole Saturday chasing a hatch detail that should've been routine

We were redoing an old church roof in Rockford and the architect drew a parapet hatch that looked simple on paper. When we got up there the existing curb was 3 inches off square and the flashing had been patched so many times it was like a puzzle. I ended up pulling out my old drafting scale and redrawing the whole thing on a scrap piece of cardboard before we could even cut metal. Took me about 7 hours total when I figured it would take 2 max. Has anyone else had a spec that looked fine in the office but turned into a nightmare once you saw the real framing?

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john_johnson7513d ago

That 3 inches off square got my attention. I used to think blueprints were pretty much gospel until I had a similar job on a school gym where the drawings showed perfectly level steel. Got up there with my level and the whole beam had a 2 inch slope from a bad weld. Spent the rest of the day making shims and cutting new anchor plates. Now I always add an extra half day to any job with old framing, because the paper never tells you what the last guy actually did.